Chapter 395: Goddess of Hearth and Family (Patreon)

This trip through time hadn't taken long.

It was over in about the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. That was mostly because, now that his level had risen, Isagi no longer had to wait for the time limit to run out before he could return as he used to.

He could go over whenever he wanted and come back whenever he wanted.

There was still a limit on how long he could stay on the other side, though. For now it was one week at most. Perhaps once he leveled up further, even that would disappear, just like—

"Doraemon's time machine."

"..."

Alfia stared at the boy in silence. She had no idea what on earth he was talking about.

Isagi, for his part, was perfectly calm. This trip back had been a huge success, after all, because of his talk with the [Empress].

It was night again when he returned.

The stars and moon were bright and clear, but everything around him was strangely quiet. Even Cecil's workshop had gone dark. Cecil had probably finished discussing the weapon with Ryuu and gone to bed.

Alfia headed back to her room to read.

Isagi didn't feel sleepy. He was trying to decide what to do: go back to his room and lie there staring at the ceiling, or maybe head outside the city walls to see Goddess Demeter...

"Ah! If it isn't my junior!!"

There weren't many people who made this much noise in the middle of the night.

Senior Alise was one of them.

The red-haired girl was with Kaguya, and the two of them seemed to be getting ready to head out on patrol and night duty.

Come to think of it, ever since the Black Seven Days of the [Great Conflict] had been changed by Isagi and Ryuu going back, Alise, Kaguya and the others had survived.

But since the girls didn't go into the Dungeon, Isagi rarely crossed paths with them. He was busy, and so were they.

The Ganesha Familia kept the peace in the city, and the Dark Familia weren't stirring up trouble anymore. Still, Orario was the City of Adventurers. Even setting aside the gray-market dealings that continued to exist, brawls and fights were common enough.

On top of that, the Guild seemed to be planning to issue new regulations to tighten security even further, while the Ganesha Familia's First-Class adventurers were mostly being sent down into the Dungeon. They were in charge of digging the Artificial Labyrinth's [Elevator], building the adventurers' town on Floor 28, and so on.

As a result, Alise and the others had actually become busier than ever.

"Wanna come out for a walk with us?!"

"Sure."

He had nothing else to do anyway.

Isagi decided to treat it as a stroll with the two seniors. Alise also mentioned that they needed to swing by the Hephaestus Familia on the way.

Hadn't he asked their captain, Tsubaki, to forge a "non-lethal" weapon for Ryuu to use on her daily patrols, so the girl wouldn't hit too hard and beat someone to death? Apparently it was finished, so they could pick it up on the way.

"Then let's go! Move out!!"

"..."

The red-haired girl was always so full of energy.

Maybe staying up all night was something they'd simply gotten used to.

They left the Court of Stars and soon reached North Main Street outside.

The lights here had long since gone out. Only the street lamps still burned with an orange glow, most of the shops along both sides were closed, and there was hardly a passerby in sight.

After all, North Main Street had no taverns or the like. Even adventurers rarely came this way at night. Its opposite was South Main Street, far ahead in the line of sight: the casinos, the theaters and the Pleasure Quarter.

The clamor there seemed to carry through the night all the way to this side.

But Isagi and the two seniors weren't headed that way. Their destination was the factory district in the direction of East Main Street, which was also why they could stop by the Hephaestus Familia on the way.

The whole way, Senior Alise's mouth never stopped.

And not just from eating. She had a little bag with her, packed with all kinds of food, even piping-hot fried potato balls, which she had probably just made herself in the kitchen.

There was even alcohol in it.

Under Kaguya's murderous glare, though, Alise didn't go so far as to drink while on patrol.

Isagi didn't remember the senior being fond of drink, either.

It probably came from her liking for dwarves. That was right: Senior Alise seemed to have a certain admiration for them, much as some people just love the fluffy ears and tails of Demi-humans (like Haruhime's).

But what Alise liked was the dwarves' character: bold, generous, unfussy about trifles.

That did match her usual temperament. But did she really have to pick up the drinking habit too?

And whenever she wasn't eating, the words poured out of her mouth without pause.

She talked about the petty thefts and strange incidents of the past few days. For example, there was a god who claimed something of his had gone missing, when in fact he'd hidden it himself just to test whether the seniors could find it. (The result, naturally, was that Goddess Astrea came to his door in person and gave him a thrashing.) (Some gods really do have that much free time.)

She also told him rumors she'd picked up from various taverns and from merchants and travelers visiting the city.

Isagi even heard Senior Alise tell the story of the "airship crash" in the Magic Kingdom. As someone who'd been right in the middle of it, he found her version even more outrageous and absurd than the truth.

And then there was...

"A new god came down to the lower world not long ago, you know."

That was somewhat unusual.

"And she came straight to Orario!"

A thousand years had passed, and gods who had only just descended were already rare.

In fact, Isagi remembered that at banquets with the goddesses, he would occasionally hear some god grumbling that there wasn't a single god left in the "Heaven" anymore. Everyone had come down, and those still up there were either sent back and unable to descend, or eccentric idiots.

They must be lonely, surely.

And a god who headed straight for Orario right after arriving was rare too.

Most gods who came down to the lower world traveled around the world first, since watching from the Heaven was nothing like experiencing it in person.

To put it bluntly, gods descended to play.

Another reason was that Orario was "too cutthroat" these days, and finding a Familia child to one's liking here was very hard.

It was better to travel the world first, find the original core members of one's Familia, and only then show off in Orario.

Loki, Freya, Astrea... even Aphrodite had done it that way.

If a god came straight to the city at the start, they might not find anyone to join their Familia at all. There were simply too many gods in Orario, so competition was fierce, and the gods themselves had "sharply drawn class lines."

A god with powerful Familia children was a powerful god.

A weak Familia at the start would not only be bullied in all sorts of ways, but might even struggle to afford food and a place to live.

That was especially true for gods without any "life skills," who could only run an exploration Familia and earn income by sending their children into the Dungeon to clear Monsters and collect Magic Stones.

On the city wall where Isagi and Ais used to practice, there was an abandoned watchtower with signs that someone had lived there. It might well have been the temporary lodging of some down-on-their-luck god who had just arrived and hadn't yet recruited any children.

"I wonder what kind of god she is~"

Senior Alise talked far too much.

But Kaguya and Isagi both disliked talking, so for the whole walk they could basically only listen to the red-haired girl chatter away.

Yet that seemed to be exactly what worked. All Alise needed was someone beside her to listen.

As for Kaguya, having company while being "tortured" gave her a certain sense of "warmth."

Both girls were clearly in good spirits.

Isagi was just as simple. Before long, he had swept through the Magic Stone factory district, which was still rumbling away under the night sky, and found nothing out of the ordinary.

So they prepared to head back.

Of course, before leaving, he didn't forget to stop by the Hephaestus Familia's base to pick up Ryuu's weapon...

...

The trip went smoothly.

Even though it was the dead of night, the [Valka's Crimson Chamber] was brightly lit.

The furnaces roared, the heat was extraordinary, and the air was filled with the clanging of hammers.

The place was positively buzzing with activity.

Isagi knew the reason. As mentioned before, after Goibniu forged the [Level 0 Armament], Goddess Hephaestus, also a god of smithing, had taken an interest and accepted the commission for the [Level 0 Armaments] from the Loki and Freya Familias.

Unlike Goibniu's side, which was small and elite, the Hephaestus Familia was a large and wealthy house.

The equipment the goddess was forging this time seemed to involve a great number of low-level smiths. Nobody knew exactly what she was trying to make.

The flames seemed set to burn most of the night sky red.

Isagi and the two seniors asked for directions again and again before finally finding Miss Tsubaki.

She wasn't in her own workshop.

She was somewhere Isagi had never been, deep within the Hephaestus Familia's base, inside a room as stifling as an iron box.

Once inside, everything in view was enormous smithing equipment, so huge that it couldn't be called tools meant for "people."

Especially the colossal furnace.

It radiated a dazzling light like a blazing sun.

Pure white flames leapt and danced.

It gave the illusion that the surrounding space itself was about to "melt."

"Ah... Isagi, what brings you here... Oh! Right, I remember now!!"

Tsubaki was clearly busy. She was assisting her own goddess.

And it was then that Isagi saw the red-haired goddess from behind.

He had met Goddess Hephaestus before, both at the "Goddess Alliance" tea parties that Goddess Demeter held from time to time, and at a few banquets.

With her fair skin, short curly hair as red as roaring flame, and lovely face, the goddess stood out. She wore an eyepatch that covered almost the entire right side of her face, which was rare even among gods. Ganesha, who wore an elephant mask year-round, didn't count.

She was tall and full-figured, and always dressed in long, close-fitting shirts and trousers.

Tonight was no different.

Beneath her long black gloves, her pure white shirt and trousers were soaked through with sweat. She looked nothing like the wild Tsubaki.

Tsubaki herself, meanwhile, wore only a bandage-like chest wrap and a skirt, and was drenched in sweat from head to toe.

"Come on, come on, I'll go get it for you. Don't disturb the Goddess."

"Mm."

Goddess Hephaestus was fully focused, and might not even have noticed that they had arrived.

Isagi, Alise and Kaguya quickly fell in behind Tsubaki to go and fetch Ryuu's new weapon.

Suddenly, a commotion came from the building next door.

It was in the Far Eastern style, probably much like Tsubaki's habit of wearing kimono. It was said that Hephaestus had lived in the Far East for a time, where, as a swordsmith, she had forged the long blades the samurai used.

Kaguya had mentioned this before.

She'd also said that Goddess Hephaestus was on good terms with Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi of the Far East, since both gods loved the swords and blades the goddess made and had kept her works preserved as "national treasures."

The building was probably something the goddess had specially built, because she'd gotten used to her days in the Far East.

"Hephaestus! Hephaestus! Hephaestus!!"

From inside the building came the pitter-patter of running feet, followed by a spoiled girl's shout, calling the god by her bare name without the slightest courtesy.

Ah...

It must be another goddess.

No mortal of the lower world would ever bellow a god's name so rudely.

Isagi was quite familiar with this, because Aphrodite got just as noisy.

Then, all of a sudden, a window of the building was thrown open, and a plump little goddess's round, chubby face appeared before everyone.

"Hephaestus!!!"

The girl-goddess's shouting was practically "deafening."

Even her two black ponytails had sprung straight up, which was a sight to behold.

"Goddess Hestia, good evening."

Tsubaki greeted the girl-goddess very politely.

"Ah! It's little Tsubaki!! I need to see Hephaestus!!"

"The Goddess is in the workshop forging weapons."

"?!"

Wasn't that right in the middle of her busiest time?

For some reason, the goddess named Hestia had the word "guilty" written all over her face.

She probably had no real business. So she was weighing whether it was a good idea to disturb a smithing goddess who was in the middle of serious work.

Meanwhile, from Tsubaki's soft-spoken explanation, Isagi and the others learned that she was the god who had come down from the Heaven to Orario just a few days ago.

The goddess of the "hearth" and the "home."

Hestia.

The [Hearth Fire] was a very important symbol. In this era, every household needed a "hearth fire" to survive, both for warmth and for cooking meals.

So.

"Don't be fooled by how silly the Goddess seems..."

It wasn't polite to say, but the girl-goddess before him really was the silliest-looking goddess Isagi had ever seen.

Her level of airheadedness was something even Aphrodite couldn't match.

"But she's actually a very, very powerful god."

So said Tsubaki.

But her pursed lips gave the impression that there was something she couldn't bring herself to say.